


It Feels Like Something

by wordsinpaper



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Fluff, M/M, set some time after 1x11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-11 01:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3310805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsinpaper/pseuds/wordsinpaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver and Connor's relationship is still delicate, but the warmth and the feelings, those are as strong as ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It feels like something

**Author's Note:**

> Set some time after the last episode. I'd tentatively place it a week after what happened in 1x11.  
> Let it be known that this all happened because of theexistencegame (on tumblr). She mentioned Oliver’s huge ass couch and next thing I know, I’m telling her that Connor has spend the night and sleep on that couch at least once, now that they’re taking things slow. So, yeah, have an excuse for me to fluff a little, because why not? We’re all in a fluffy mood, am I right? Got the title from the song with the same title by David Fonseca. Look it up, it's good!

It's almost like Oliver forgot about it – Connor being here, the two of them being together... After kicking Connor out, Oliver had gotten used to not having him around anymore; not for favors, not for dinners, not for sex – but, in reality, he didn't forget at all. He is hyper-aware of Connor's presence in the apartment.

Oliver remembers how he looked to his side last night, only to see Connor slumped down on his assigned side of the sofa. Connor was hugging a colored pillow, his eyes closed but not sleeping quite yet.

Oliver turned off the TV and interrupted Connor’s protests. Telling him that they both needed some rest and that they’d have more time in the future to finish the show Connor suggested they watch together.

Connor had that defeated look on his face but still nodded and picked up his shoes, getting ready to leave. Oliver sighed softly and told him to stay. Connor froze mid-step and Oliver elaborated, saying it was too late for him to go anywhere. Connor could stay in the couch, if he’d like.

Things between them had been slowly evolving. Connor’s side of the couch wasn’t as far from Oliver’s now but things were still too fragile to risk a move to the bed. Not just yet. They were doing things slowly now and it was working, so why fix what wasn’t broken?

Connor seemed to be on the same page because he nodded and put his shoes back on the floor before making his way to the couch.

Oliver got an extra blanket from his closet and handed it to Connor along with a softer pillow. They both seemed to hesitate for a second but then Connor got up on his knees and leaned over the couch to drop a small kiss on Oliver’s lips. He murmured a soft “good night, Oliver” and settled back down on the couch.

Oliver went to bed with a smile on his face and a lightness in his chest.

Now it's morning and he’s warming his hands in his favorite mug, sipping on his steaming coffee. He wiggles his toes in his socks while he looks down at a sleeping Connor.

Connor’s got a hand wrapped in the blanket and another under the pillow. He takes a deep breath and starts stirring awake.

Oliver finishes his coffee as their eyes meet. Connor smiles sleepily up at him and he can’t help but smile back. He walks back to the kitchen and places his empty mug in the sink.

“There’s more coffee here if you want,” Oliver says, walking back to his bedroom. “I’m going to get dressed. Help yourself.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Connor replies, already sitting up and folding the blanket.

When Oliver returns to the living room, Connor is waiting for him, leaning on the wall next to the door.

“You ready?” Connor asks.

“Yeah. Let’s go then.” Oliver closes the door and he can feel Connor lingering behind him in the hallway. He thinks he understands this irrational feeling he gets sometimes, as if by staying close to each other, this new relationship they’ve been carefully nurturing will be protected.

He looks back once before locking the door. Connor quickly trying to tame his hair and fix his clothes.

“Did you sleep well?” Oliver asks. His couch is good to sit on and watch TV but it can’t possibly be that comfortable to sleep on.He turns and finds Connor hastily lowering his arms, pretending he wasn’t just working a kink on his back.

Oliver smiles sympathetically.

“No. I mean, yes, I slept well, but also no.” Connor twists again, trying to stretch out the muscles of his lower back. Oliver gives him those sad eyes again and he’s quick to defend. “It’s not as uncomfortable as you think. It’s actually better than mine. It’s firm but still soft. And that blanket did a great job of keeping me warm at night. I mean, not that it was cold, in your apartment, I didn’t mean—”

Oliver grabs his face and gently pulls him into a lingering kiss. “I’m sorry you slept like shit on my uncomfortable couch.”

“I really didn’t—”

“And I’m sorry I made you sleep on the couch.” Oliver brushes a hand down the lapel of Connor’s jacket. Smoothing away a crease. “It’s just— I wasn’t— We’re not— at least I don’t think we’re quite—”

Connor smiles shyly. “It’s okay. I get it. I like this going slow thing. Slow is—slow is good with you.”

Oliver grins back and this time it’s Connor who steps forward for a kiss. Oliver lets out a small noise of surprise when Connor’s fingers find his but doesn’t pull away, interlacing their fingers instead.

“Slow is good with you, too.”


	2. And it feels like I'm closer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone on tumblr asked me to write a follow-up to this fic. They asked for “the first time Oliver invites Connor to bed. Shameless fluff. :’)”  
> So here you have it, peeps. Please mind the sugary stuff in this. Title of this chapter still from the same song mentioned in the first part.

Oliver finishes typing an email to a colleague from work. They’d been discussing this idea for a new project and Oliver had been working on a few lines of code, which he attached to that email. He hit _send_ and looked at the time on his laptop. 1:27 am. He hadn’t realized he’d been working on it all night. Funny how time works, eh?

He sighs and stretches in his place on the couch, careful not to let his laptop fall from his lap. Closing it, he puts it down beside him and rubs at his tired eyes.

That’s when he looks down and finds Connor still sitting on the floor of his carpeted floor, going over his study notes. And, whoa! The mass of papers around him as multiplied, and so has the diameter of the “war zone”, as Oliver likes to call it whenever Connor stops by and borrows his living room for studying purposes.

“Your apartment building is much quieter than mine,” he’d said once while standing at Oliver’s front door and holding a small pile of books and notes, a pleading look on his face.

“I’m not sure which one is worse: the dog from the floor below, barking at the smallest of noises, or the couple living above me, whose TV seems to be stuck on the highest volume setting,” Connor had added that night, after Oliver stepped aside to let him in.

He’d pointed at the couch, saying “It’s all yours.”

And Connor seems to have taken to it, he accepted it instantly. However, sometime after that night, he decided that sitting on the floor gave him better access to the small table he often uses to spread his books, notes and a variety of other things. His phone usually gets lost in the middle of it all, and when Oliver pointed it out to him a couple days ago, Connor just shrugged and said it’s better that way, ‘cause he won’t be distracted by it.

The past few days this week have been spent much the same way. Connor shows up at his place with dinner; they eat, talk, do the dishes, spend a few minutes kissing on that couch… but eventually, Connor pulls back with an apologetic expression and says that he really needs to study for his exams. And Oliver understands. This guy spends his days between classes and Annalise’s work cases. The fact that he wants to spend the remaining time of his day with Oliver, even if it’s just by sitting close to him for hours on end while the papers on his living room floor keep proliferating, is… _meaningful_.

Once the exams are over, he’s pretty sure their nights will be spent somewhat differently. But, as of right now, Oliver is fine with this. Having him close by is enough for him. It feels domestic, in a way it hasn’t before.

Sometimes there are words exchanged, but mostly, they work in silence. Oliver is either sitting on his desk -- which usually happens when he’s working on a deadline -- or he’ll sit on his couch, sometimes even absentmindedly rubbing the back of Connor’s neck when he sees him roll his shoulders to work out a kink.

Oliver doesn’t know exactly what is so magical about their peaceful quiet moments, but he swears it makes him feel calm, like all the worries have left his home, even if Connor is nervously flipping pages below him, or rolling his wrist to get rid of his hand cramps, while his eyes never stop running along the many lines of text in front of him.

It always makes him smile heartily when he finds Connor exactly like he is right now: hair disheveled from all the times he’s run his fingers through it in frustration, a pen in his mouth, and a highlighter sliding smoothly across the white paper.

Oliver lets out a chuckle, breaking the silent spell in the room, and startling Connor, who looks back at him with a questioning gaze.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to highlight that many paragraphs in a row,” he comments, nodding at the bright yellow page sitting in Connor’s lap.

The law student lets out a deep sigh, pen falling on the paper and head falling back to rest against the couch.

He doesn’t usually stay at Oliver’s so late, but then again Oliver isn’t usually on his laptop so long into the night either. He’s usually the one getting up to make them some tea, breaking Connor’s concentration in exchange for a few relaxed moments. They often find themselves sitting on the couch, hands meeting and fingers intertwining, sharing looks and smiles over their warm mugs. Then, when they’re done, Oliver takes their empty mugs to the kitchen and Connor starts to clean up his mess of papers, leaving it all in a neat stack sitting on the small table for the next day.

That’s usually what happens around 11 pm, when Connor puts his shoes back on, slips on his heavy coat and drops a lingering kiss to Oliver’s lips before going home. He would have stayed, taken the couch again, but after the second time there, Connor sheepishly admitted to Oliver that, okay, maybe it wasn’t worth the back pain when he kept running back and forth between classrooms and Annalise’s house. So he would go home to his own bed.

It’s something that’s been on Oliver’s mind a lot lately. Connor has been extremely understanding and hasn’t pushed any of Oliver’s boundaries, sticking to his word on taking things slow and letting Oliver decide when to take the next step.

Oliver slides to the center of the couch, placing a leg on either side of Connor and leaning over his face, his hands massaging Connor’s shoulders. The other man lets out a sigh, closing his eyes in pure bliss.

“It’s just all so important, you know?” he comments in a raspy and tired voice as he drops the highlighter somewhere to his right.

Oliver kisses the tip of his nose, making Connor smile.

“I know. But I also know that you’re completely burned out right now and that you know all of this already,” he says, pressing harder against the muscles in Connor’s back.

Oliver leans away from Connor’s personal space so he can bow forward, giving him better access to his back.

“Oh, god,” Connor groans painfully when Oliver presses on that one spot on his back that’s been bothering him in the last fifteen minutes or so.

“You need to rest, Connor. Not only your mind, but also your body.”

“What time is it?” he asks, pushing forward, lifting papers and books looking for his phone.

“It’s very late. You should probably stay here tonight,” Oliver says after a moment of consideration.

Connor snorts, still looking for his phone and making an even bigger mess of the papers scattered around the table and floor.

“Yeah, not gonna happen, buddy. Any other day and I might give your couch another chance, but I have this exam in the morning and--”

“I meant you can stay with me. In the bed,” Oliver interrupts him.

Connor stops on his hands and knees to look back at Oliver, now standing beside him. Connor sits back on his feet.

“Are you sure? I mean, it’s not that long a drive to my place, I don’t mind it.”

Oliver sighs and offers a hand to help him up. Once Connor is standing before him, he pulls him in for a deep slow kiss. When he pulls back, Connor is still looking at him with a surprised look on his face.

“There’s a toothbrush in a box under the sink. Go brush your teeth. I’ll bring you some comfortable clothes in a second.”

“Okay,” Connor replies, nodding dumbly at him before doing as he was told.

Oliver takes a deep breath as soon as he’s gone. It’s not as hard as he thought it would be. He feels lighter and ready. He almost feels somewhat nervous about this, which is silly. They’re going to sleep; they’re not doing anything else. But the idea of having Connor’s body wrapped up around his after all this time…

“This is ridiculous. I feel like a teenager,” he whispers to himself as he gets some old clothes from his dresser and places them on the counter beside the sink. He and Connor exchange looks in the mirror and he doesn’t resist dropping a kiss on his cheek before leaving him to it.

He quickly puts on his pajamas and goes back to the living room, picking up the stuff that’s all over his floor and dumping it all unceremoniously on his small table. They’ll take care of it later.

Oliver walks back into his room just as Connor is turning off the bathroom lights. He puts his clothes down on Oliver’s red chair by the fireplace and turns back to face him.

“We’re okay with this, yes?”

In which Oliver knows what he’s really asking is if Oliver is okay with it. Which he is. Totally. He actually craves it, now that he’s given some time to think about it.

He nods, walking past him to get to his side of the bed. Connor follows his lead and slips into the sheets from the other side.

“I missed the simplicity of this. The easiness,” Connor whispers once Oliver turns off the lights.

He turns, so they’re both lying on their sides, facing each other. He reaches out to pull Connor closer to him and is rewarded with a small kiss on his shoulder. He smiles and kisses Connor’s forehead in turn.

“Me too. But, like you said before, I like doing this going slow thing with you.”


End file.
